Here are a few things you should know about social media: 3.96 billion people use social media worldwide, and, on average, people spend about 2 hours and 24 minutes on social media every day. Those are staggering numbers, and those numbers are only predicted to rise as social media platforms expand their features to address more needs. Facebook and Instagram, for example, now have eCommerce capabilities, allowing people to buy and sell without leaving the site.
All these mean that if you want to invest in web marketing, social media is one of your best options. Many businesses recognize the importance of social media marketing. 73% of marketers believe that it was effective in growing their business and more than 91% of US businesses use social media marketing. At this point, it’s safe to assume that all your competitors are advertising their businesses on social media. You shouldn’t let yourself fall behind.
Yes, you should invest in social media advertising
Here is an in-depth analysis on the advantages social media advertising offers.
- Reach the people most likely to buy your product
Compared to traditional marketing strategies, social media advertising exposes you to your target market more effectively. When you put up a TV commercial or a print ad, you’re casting a wide net and hoping to reel in more customers. This is inefficient since you pay a fixed (often high) fee with no guarantee that you’ll get a good return. Social media boasts sophisticated targeting algorithms that allow businesses to refine their ad audience. You can choose the age, gender, location, interests, etc. of the people you want to see your ad. It may seem counterintuitive to limit the people to advertise to, but if your ad is accurately targeted towards the people who are most likely to buy your products, you can achieve a lower cost per acquisition.
Think about it this way: if you’re a shop selling workout clothes, who are most likely to be interested in your company? Someone interested in video games, or someone interested in fitness and exercise?
- Good return on investment
It’s already established that web marketing is significantly cheaper than traditional advertising, but social media advertising is one of the cheapest strategies a brand can implement. The average cost per click on a Google ad is $2.32, meanwhile, Facebook averages on a cost per click of $0.12. The returns are quite staggering as well. Effective ad campaigns have the potential to reach millions of people. 61% of businesses even reported revenue growth after they started advertising on social media.
- Get instant feedback
Compared to traditional marketing, you can immediately know how your ad is performing on social media. They have built-in analytics tools that tell you how many impressions and engagements your ad has received. You can also check comments and mentions to know users’ responses to the ad.
Brand-consumer communication is easier than ever thanks to social media. It creates an environment where consumers feel more open to telling brands exactly what’s on their mind. Using this data, you can make smarter decisions about your next ad campaign. What ad format resonates better with users? What captions work best? What questions do they ask most frequently, maybe you should include those details in the ad copy next time? Some businesses even use social media features like polls to ask their audience what products they should release next.
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- Humanizes your brand
You don’t just have to use social media advertising for your products and services. You can also use it to highlight your brand’s mission. We live in a time where consumers are generally distrustful of businesses, so you have to make an effort to show them that you’re not just a faceless corporation out for their money. TOMS Shoes are a great example of this. They’re a shoe brand that runs a One for One campaign, where they donate a pair of shoes for every pair bought. This campaign features heavily in all their social media advertising, and it helped skyrocket them into one of the biggest shoe brands of the last decade, with over 50 million shoes donated. These types of ads not only boost your brand’s reputation but also make consumers feel like they’re doing good by patronizing your business, which can boost your sales.
Besides helping spread your advocacy, social media also gives your brand character. Wendy’s and other fast-food chains have famously gone viral for adopting an informal and sometimes crass tone in their social media advertisements. This shows that consumers are more likely to respond to funny and quirky ads as opposed to generic ones.
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- Boosts your website traffic
By linking your website to your social media ads, you can get more visitors to your website where you can hopefully complete the conversion process.
While it’s widely agreed-upon that search engines still bring in the most traffic and visibility, relying solely on it is bad practice. By diversifying your avenues for inbound traffic, you have ways of getting people to your site in case one way fails. For example, what if your website’s search engine results page rank dropped to the second page. This will significantly impact your search engine traffic. However, if you have your Facebook or Twitter ads up, you can still get site visitors through there while you start a campaign to get you back on the first page.
Social media advertising is a popular web marketing strategy and it’s easy to see why. However, you can’t just expect instant success by posting ads on social media with no rhyme or reason. Each social media platform is unique, from its demographic and user behavior to post format and algorithm. Understanding these differences can help you develop effective ads for each platform. Remember that you don’t need to maintain 8 or 9 social media accounts to run a successful social media marketing campaign. You only need to focus on the ones your target demographic frequents.